What to Do About Weeds and Dandelions?

How to Cultivate the Perfect Lawn

Even the most immaculately manicured lawns have bouts with weeds and dandelions. So what do you do when you see one on your lawn, and how do you prevent more from sprouting?

Ways to Kill a Dandelion

Once you discover weeds on your lawn, you have three possible ways to approach the situation.

Pull the weeds by hand

Spray an herbicide

Apply an herbicide alternative

Pulling Weeds by Hand

It’s easy. You just yank it out of the ground, right? Well, not exactly.

Although angry homeowners often pull dandelions out of the ground, this method often does not kill the weed. In order to truly eradicate your dandelion problem, you must remove the entire taproot.

Many stores sell special “dandelion pullers” that can help you hand dig and remove the taproot. Ideally, hand digging should be done in the spring when the first dandelion seedlings appear. This way you can remove the problematic weeds before their seed can spread.

Spraying an Herbicide

If hand digging sounds like too much work, using an herbicide may be a good idea. There are two primary types of herbicides: